Читать книгу Winning the War Hero's Heart - Mary Nichols, Mary Nichols - Страница 6

1816

Helen heard the hunt some time before it came into view. The dogs were yelping and the horn sounding a wild halloo, and there was the thunder of hooves which seemed to shake the ground at her feet. Surely they would not come galloping through the village? The road was narrow, flanked on either side by workers’ cottages and their small gardens. And there were people on the street: woman gossiping at their gates, children playing, a cat sunning itself on one of the few days in the year in which the sun shone. Hearing the commotion, the women snatched up their children and disappeared indoors. The cat, its tail a wire brush, fled. Helen drew in her serviceable grey skirt and pushed herself against the fence of one of the cottages as the fox streaked past her. It scrambled over the gate and into a garden where a little boy was playing. It nearly knocked him over as it flew across the garden and through the hedge on the far side.

The dogs were in the street now, desperate to get at their quarry and the riders were not far behind. Afraid for the child, Helen moved swiftly into the garden, scooped him up and ran towards the house, but all she had time to do was press herself and the little one hard against the wall before the whole hunt was upon them. Dogs and horses milled about, trampling down rows of beans and cabbages and the currant bushes, wrecking the patch of grass and the few bedraggled flowers which had been growing each side of the path that ran between the rows and knocking over the hen coop and sending the chickens flapping and squawking to die under the horses’ hooves.

And then just as quickly they were gone, flattening the neatly clipped hedge at the end of the garden—all except one rider, who pulled up beside her. ‘Are you hurt, madam? Is your little one injured?’

Helen found herself looking up at the Earl of Warburton’s son, Viscount Cavenham. She knew who he was because a great fuss had been made of him in the district when he came back from Waterloo, a wounded hero. He did not look wounded to her, sitting arrogantly on a huge black stallion, looking down at her with what she took to be contempt. True, she was wearing her grey workaday dress, a wool spencer and a plain chip bonnet and the child she held so close to her bosom was filthy and bawling his head off, but that was no excuse. Still, he was the only one of the hunters to stop and enquire, so she ought to answer him.

‘No, we are not hurt, but the child is terrified. Have you no more sense than to come galloping all over other people’s property, ruining a year of hard work? This was once a productive garden. Now look at it.’ She waved an arm to encompass the mess.

‘The dogs follow the fox, madam,’ he said. ‘And the riders follow the dogs. And unless I am mistaken, the property is not yours, but part of the Cavenham estate. The Earl may go where he chooses.’

‘How arrogant and unfeeling can you be?’ she demanded. ‘How would you like it if someone trampled all over Ravens Park and terrified your children?’

‘I have no children.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she countered.

His smile transformed his face from darkly brooding to almost human, but she was too angry to notice, too furious to take in his good looks, his thick dark hair curling below his riding hat and into his neck, his broad shoulders and the long elegant fingers holding the reins, not to mention a shapely thigh, clad in white riding breeches, with which he was controlling his restive mount. ‘Perhaps. But I do not think anyone would dare invade the Park.’

‘No, but why is there one law for the rich and another for the poor? And for your information, I am not the child’s mother and I do not live here. I am simply an observer.’

‘Oh.’ He looked slightly taken aback, but recovered quickly. ‘Then I suggest you reunite the child with his mother and mind your own business.’

‘I intend to make it my business,’ she said, as a woman came from the house, diverting him from a reply.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said, taking the child from Helen. ‘I was upstairs when I heard the hullabaloo and in my haste to come down and fetch Edward indoors to safety, I tripped and fell. It winded me for a moment. If you hadn’t acted so quickly …’ She stopped, suddenly seeing the Viscount. ‘My lord.’ She curtsied and dipped her head.

The gesture infuriated Helen. ‘He and his like have just frightened your little boy nearly to death and ruined your garden and you bend your knee to him. You should be angry and demanding compensation.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she murmured, looking fearfully up at the man on the horse. ‘This is a tied cottage and I work at the big house.’

Helen realised she would probably make matters worse if she went on, so she held her tongue. Looking from the woman to the Viscount, she caught him gazing at her with an expression of puzzlement. So, he did not know who she was. He would soon find out.

He turned his attention from her to the mother. ‘Are you hurt, madam?’

‘A bruise or two, my lord. It is nothing, I thank you.’

Helen could have kicked her for her meekness. No wonder men like the Earl and his son felt they had a God-given right to trample over poor folk, just as they had trampled over the garden.

‘I am sorry about the garden,’ his lordship said softly, taking Helen by surprise. ‘The dogs became too excited to control and there was nothing I could do.’ He smiled again, though this time it was aimed at the other woman, not Helen. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a coin, which he passed to her. She accepted it, thanked him and curtsied. Without looking at Helen again, he wheeled his horse about and rode off.

‘Of all the arrogance!’ Helen exclaimed, watching him go.

‘He has given me a whole guinea,’ the woman said in mitigation. ‘And, to be fair, he didn’t ride over the garden, did he? He was the only one who stopped.’

Helen was in no mood to see any good in the Earl of Warburton’s son and did not respond, but accepted an invitation to enter the cottage for a cup of tea. ‘It is only camomile,’ the woman said. ‘I do not have Indian tea.’

It was while she was waiting for the kettle to boil that she learned a little more about Mrs Watson. ‘My husband died at Waterloo,’ she told Helen, putting the baby on the floor while she set out a teapot and cups. ‘Eddie was only a baby when he went off. He’d been all through the Peninsula without a scratch and he didn’t have to re-enlist, but he would go because Viscount Cavenham went and he couldn’t have the Earl’s son going off and making him look a coward. Why are men so proud?’

‘I don’t know,’ Helen murmured, thinking of her father. He was proud, too, and look where that had got him.

‘I’m lucky the housekeeper at the big house gave me a job in the laundry,’ Mrs Watson went on. ‘While I have this cottage, I can manage. Having the garden helps with fruit and vegetables and eggs, though nothing was growing well this year. Do you think we will ever get a summer?’

‘Let us hope so,’ Helen said. ‘I fear for the workers if the harvest is ruined.’ The year so far had been uncommonly wet and cold. It had rained every day and there had been snow in London the week before. According to the London newspapers, which sometimes published news from the regions, there was snow in hilly districts only a little further north. Some crops were already rotting in the fields. Farm labourers were out of work and added to the numbers of soldiers returning from the end of the war with Napoleon. And yet the Earl must have his sport. Unlike some, he hunted all the year round.

‘I’ll have to see what I can salvage. Perhaps it’s not as bad as it looks.’ Mrs Watson broke in on Helen’s reverie. ‘I have you to thank that Eddie was not trampled along with it. He could have been killed. That would have been far, far worse.’

‘And I don’t suppose the Earl would care any more about that than he cared about your dead chickens.’

Mrs Watson handed her a cup of tea. ‘Is it just the Earl you dislike or is it all landed gentry?’

The question surprised Helen and for a moment she did not know how to answer. ‘The Earl of Warburton is typical of his kind,’ she said slowly. ‘Arrogant, selfish, unfeeling. They seem to think money will buy them anything. It would do them all good to be without it for a while to see how everyone else has to manage.’

Mrs Watson laughed. ‘My, you do have a chip on your shoulder, don’t you?’

‘I suppose I do,’ Helen admitted. ‘but I try not to let it show. Today I was so angry I couldn’t help it.’

‘You don’t live in the village, do you?’

‘No, in Warburton. My name is Helen Wayland.’

This evidently meant nothing to Mrs Watson so Helen did not enlighten her. In her experience, telling someone she owned and published the Warburton Record was a sure way to have them holding their tongues. They would not believe she did not intend to publish some calumny about them when all she wanted to do was publicise their plight.

‘You are a town dweller, Miss Wayland, and cannot know what it is like to live in a small village, dependent on the local landowner for everything …’

‘Perhaps you should tell me,’ Helen said, picking the baby up off the floor and cuddling him on her lap. He began playing with her father’s watch, which she wore as a fob. ‘Then I might understand.’

Mrs Watson looked doubtful, but her visitor was so obviously fond of children and genuinely interested that she poured them both a second cup of tea and sat down to answer her questions.

Miles considered whether to catch up with the hunt or call it a day and decided he might as well go home. He did not want to be party to any more ruined gardens and he certainly did not want to have to justify himself to irate young ladies with fierce hazel eyes. Who the devil was she? Not gentry, that was evident from the simple way she dressed and the way she did not mind that grubby child dirtying her clothes, but none of that detracted from her proud demeanour. She had defied him and that was something he was not used to and his first reaction had been anger. But what she had said had troubled his conscience, not that he could do anything to prevent his father running the hunt over his own land. He was a law unto himself and as far as he was concerned owning the land and the cottages meant he also owned those who dwelt in them.

Did the defiant Miss Grey Gown come under that heading? She had undoubtedly saved the child’s life and, in his opinion, its mother should not be the only one who was grateful because his father, as Master of the Hunt, should also give thanks that his dogs and horses had not trampled the little one to death. Had he even been aware of her or the child as he hurtled through the garden after the dogs?

And what on earth had the woman meant by saying ‘I intend to make it my business’? It sounded like a threat, but how could a mere nobody, who could not be more than five and twenty, threaten someone like the Earl of Warburton? Miles was suddenly and inexplicably afraid for her.

He was walking his horse, deep in thought, and did not at first notice the man sitting on the milestone on the edge of the village. His attention was drawn to him when he stood up and took a step towards him, his hand outstretched. ‘My lord …’

Miles pulled up. The man was in rags and painfully thin. ‘Byers, isn’t it?’ he queried, not sure the vision who confronted him could be the big strong man who had once been employed as a gardener at Ravens Park.

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘What happened to you, man?’

‘I came back from the war and there was no work to be had and my wife and children had gone to live with her sister. Will you give a coin or two to tide me over and help feed my little ones, my lord?’

Miles could tell how difficult it was for him to beg.

‘Why did you not go back to Ravens Park when you were discharged?’ he asked.

‘The Earl had given my place to someone else, the cottage, too. He would not take me on again.’

‘I am sorry to hear that.’

‘I was a good worker,’ Byers went on. ‘No one ever found fault with what I did; I served my time for king and country and that’s all the thanks I get for it.’

‘I can understand your bitterness,’ Miles said. ‘But the garden at Ravens Park could not wait on your return, you know. And gardeners expect to be housed.’ He paused. ‘Did you see the hunt come through just now?’

‘Yes, nigh on bowled me over, it did. Why do you ask?’

‘It ran over Mrs Watson’s garden and wrecked it. If you go and put it right for her, I’ll pay you. Better than begging, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Off you go, then. When it’s done, come to the house and ask for me. I’ll have your wages for you.’

The man touched his forelock and Miles trotted on towards Ravens Park. Jack Byers wasn’t the only one unemployed in the area. There were other ex-soldiers begging on the streets and they were adding to the agricultural labourers who were out of work on account of the dreadful weather ruining the crops. Times were bad for everyone, especially in a countryside that depended on farming for a living. He ought to try to do something to help, but what? Handing out money was not the answer.

He shook the problem from him as he cantered up the drive towards the house. His father, who had been Viscount Cavenham at the time, had had it built just before he was born, to replace an older building that had fallen into disrepair. It was meant to celebrate his marriage and his earldom. Miles’s mother, Dorothea, only daughter of Earl Graine, was a catch for any man because of her ancient lineage, far superior to that of the Cavenhams. She was beautiful but frail and completely dominated by her husband. He was not physically violent towards her, but his tongue lashings often left her in tears. Miles loved his mother dearly and wished she would learn to stand up for herself. But he understood why she did not. She had been brought up in a culture in which the husband was head of the household and should be deferred to in all things and it distressed her when Miles argued with his father.

Their disagreements were usually over the way the Earl treated his people. He was like a petty king whose subjects were expected to bend the knee and obey his commands under pain of destitution. That only worked so far; sooner or later the people would rise up and rebel. Miles had seen what had happened in the army if an officer ruled by fear. It did not make for a happy and willing force, whereas justice tempered with mercy and a willingness to share in the men’s hardship worked wonders for morale.

The last straw had been when Miles had defended the boot boy from a beating on account of his lordship’s boots not being as shiny as he thought they should be. He had suffered the beating instead of the lad, which he did not regret, but as soon as he was old enough he had left home to join the army. He had come home to find his mother even more cowed than before and was shocked by how frail she seemed. Many a time he had bitten his tongue on a sharp retort for her sake. But it would be difficult to keep silent about the way Mrs Watson and Jack Byers had been treated.

Helen was taking her leave of Mrs Watson when Jack arrived to say he had been bidden to set her garden to rights.

‘Who bade you do it?’ Mrs Watson asked.

‘The Viscount. He said he would pay me.’

‘Then he’s not as black as he’s painted.’

‘It’s no more than you’re due,’ Helen put in. ‘But it should have been the Earl who ordered it.’

‘Don’t matter who ordered it,’ Byers said. ‘I’m glad enough of the work, though it won’t get me my old job back.’

‘Why did you lose your job?’ Helen asked.

‘I went to war. It weren’t as if I wanted to go, but the Earl hinted that if his son went, then I should not lag behind. I’d be a coward if I did. And then when I come back, my job had gone to someone else and the cottage with it. My wife and family had been turned out and gone to live with her sister in Warburton. She’s only got a small house and they’re cramped for room. I’ve been sleeping out o’ doors.’

‘You put my garden to rights and you can sleep in my outhouse,’ Mrs Watson said. ‘It’s dry and there’s straw for a bed. I’ll give you a blanket.’

‘Thank you kindly, ma’am.’

‘I’ll come back tomorrow and see how you got on,’ Helen said as she bade them goodbye.

She would ask Jack Byers to tell his story and she would talk to other ex-soldiers; she would have something to say about the Earl and his guests riding roughshod over other people’s gardens and their feelings. It would fill a page of the Warburton Record and perhaps she could stir up some influential consciences. She was already composing the article in her head as she walked the three miles back to Warburton.

Warburton was a bustling little market town with two churches, a chapel, a mill, a public school for those who could afford to send their children there and a dame school for those who could not. It had two doctors: Dr Graham, who looked after the elite who could afford his fees, and Dr Benton, who treated everyone else. The town also had a blacksmith, a farrier, a harness maker who also made and mended shoes, a butcher and provisions shop, a small haberdasher and the Warburton printing press, home of the Warburton Record, which was where Helen was bound.

The business occupied a building in the centre of the town. There was an office at the front and the printing press in a room at the back. Helen lived in an apartment above the shop with only Betty, her maid, for company. A sign hanging above the door proclaimed, ‘H. Wayland, publisher and printer. Proprietor of the Warburton Record. All printing tasks undertaken, large and small.’ The H. stood for Henry, of course, but it also served for Helen so she saw no reason to change it.

A bell tinkled as she opened the door and let herself in. At a desk to one side young Edgar Harrington was busy writing. Helen went to look over his shoulder. He was composing a report on recent court hearings.

‘Committed to Warburton Bridewell for twelve months,’ she read. ‘John Taylor for stealing a pig from Joseph Boswell, farmer of Littleacre near Warburton.’ And again. ‘For stealing a peck of wheat from the barn at Home Farm, Ravensbrook, Daniel Cummings was sentenced to six months in gaol.’ There were several cases of poaching brought by the gamekeeper at Ravens Park. All had been found guilty and been sentenced to varying degrees of punishment, from prison to transportation, which Helen thought unduly harsh. No doubt the Earl, who controlled his fellow magistrates, had demanded they be made an example of. But if the poor men were hungry and had hungry families, who could blame them if they took a rabbit or two, or even a pig? It was different for the organised gangs, who came from the big cities to sell their ill-gotten gains to willing buyers. Those she condemned.

She moved through to the back room where Tom Salter was typesetting. Tom was in his middle years and had been working for the Record ever since Helen’s father moved to Warburton eight years before. He was good at his job, though Helen suspected he had reservations about working for a woman. He looked up as she entered. ‘A Mr Roger Blakestone came in while you were out, Miss Wayland. He wants us to print that poster.’ He nodded to a large sheet of paper lying on another table. ‘I said I’d have to ask you. It could get us into trouble.’

Helen picked the poster up and perused it. It was notice of a rally to demonstrate the plight of the agricultural labourers, which was to take place on the common the following Saturday afternoon at half past two. ‘The speaker will be Jason Hardacre,’ it declared in large capital letters.

She understood why Tom was doubtful about accepting the job. Jason Hardacre was a known firebrand who went from town to town, urging workers to stand up to their employers and strike for more wages. He stirred up unrest wherever he went, inciting his followers to violence against the farmers, whom he called the oppressors, although the farmers were struggling to keep going themselves. He had had some initial success, but the labourers were too worried about losing their positions to support him wholeheartedly, especially when there were plenty of men ready to step into their shoes if they were dismissed. Publishing such a poster could be construed as seditious and the publisher liable to prosecution.

‘How many does he want printed?’ she asked.

‘Half a gross.’

‘Print them.’

‘I’m busy putting the paper together.’

‘Leave that. I’ve something new to put on the front page. I’ll write it now and have it ready in an hour. You can do that poster in the meantime.’

‘Miss Wayland, are you sure? You know how Mr Wayland was always in trouble for taking on work like that. The Earl had him prosecuted more than once, as well you know.’

‘Yes, Tom, I do know. But my father was never afraid to do what he thought was right, even if it meant he was in trouble for it. He did not see why the Earl should dictate what he published and neither do I.’

‘Very well,’ Tom answered and set aside the page he was typesetting to begin on the poster.

The newspaper consisted of two large folded sheets and was on sale by lunchtime every Wednesday and Saturday. Helen kept the front for her own reports and for court announcements from the London papers. Her readers liked to know what the Regent and the nobility were up to in London. They wanted to know who had been granted a peerage, who had been made a knight and they keenly awaited a résumé of what was being said in Parliament. Earlier in the month she had copied the report of Princess Charlotte’s wedding to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. It had been a joyous occasion in an otherwise miserable year.

The back page was almost all given over to advertisements: comestibles, livestock, agricultural implements and quack medicines. The inside pages were filled with local news: a farmer’s stack set on fire—there had been several instances of arson lately, which were put down to the unrest among the labourers—a newcomer of note moving into the district, unusual happenings in the town, reports of the magistrate’s sittings, who had been convicted, who let off with a caution for anything from petty theft and criminal damage to poaching and assault.

Helen skimmed through the latest notices of births, marriages, obituaries and coming events. Josiah Bird-wood had died, aged seventy-six. He had been married three times and sired thirty children. Donations and prizes were needed for the races and various contests for the Midsummer Fair, held on the common every year. The Earl and Countess of Warburton and Viscount Cavenham would grace it with their presence and judge some of the competitions. There was to be a dance at the Warburton Assembly Rooms to celebrate the first anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Lord and Lady Somerfield’s daughter, Miss Verity Somerfield, was to come out with a grand ball to be held at their ancestral home at Gayton Hall.

Helen took off her bonnet and sat at her desk to report the hunt and the destruction it had caused.

Gilbert Cavenham, first Earl of Warburton, flung the newspaper on the table and swore loudly. ‘I thought I’d rid myself of that thorn in my side,’ he said to Miles. ‘But it seems his daughter is bent on continuing where he left off.’

‘What do you mean?’ Miles asked. ‘What thorn in your side? Whose daughter?’

‘Henry Wayland. He owned the Warburton Record and was always publishing libel. I had to bring him to court on more than one occasion, but neither fines nor prison seemed to deter him. Now he’s dead, I’m getting the same sort of rubbish from his daughter. Whoever heard of a woman running a newspaper?’

‘Why not?’ Miles said. ‘I suppose she inherited it and had no other way to support herself.’

‘I doubt she’ll carry it off. An appearance in court will soon dampen her ardour.’

‘What has she said to annoy you so much?’

‘Read it for yourself.’ He picked up the paper and waved it at his son. ‘Libel, that’s what it is, defamation of character. She needs to be taught she cannot ridicule me and get away with it.’

Miles was busy reading and hardly heard him. It was all he could do not to smile. The lady, whoever she was, had a witty turn of phrase. ‘The noble lord, in order to please his guests, literally left no stone unturned,’ he read. ‘Everything was ordered for their entertainment. The hunt hallooed its way over hill and dale, down lanes and across fields, chasing a fox that had surely been especially selected to give the most sport. Reynard led them a merry dance into the village of Ravensbrook, scattering the population and trampling down the small garden of a poor widow and putting her baby son in mortal danger. The excuse given by the only rider who deigned to pull up was, “The dogs follow the fox and the riders follow the dogs.” So we must blame the fox and no one else. But can a fox put right the damage that was done? Can the fox reset the rows of beans and peas? Can the fox revive dead chickens? Or still a child’s crying? Does killing the erring animal exact just retribution?

‘We must not begrudge the noble lord and his guests their sport, but who should pay for it? Surely not the poor widow endeavouring to provide for herself and her fatherless son. Not the fox, who was only doing what foxes do by nature and that is to run from its enemies. The dogs, perhaps? But they are trained to hunt the fox. Then we are left with whoever trained the hounds or caused them to be trained: the noble lord himself. But does he offer recompense, does he even apologise? No, because the land is his and he may ride over it whenever he chooses.

‘There is surely something wrong with that premise. However humble, an Englishman’s home is his castle and should be respected, even by those set above him, especially by those set above him. Responsibility should go hand in hand with privilege.’

Miles put the paper down with a smile. ‘She doesn’t mince her words, does she?’

‘I’ll send for Sobers,’ the Earl said. ‘He’ll issue a writ for defamation of character on my behalf and we shall see if she is so sharp when it comes to reporting her own downfall.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?’ Miles said, wondering who had given the paper the information; it could have been Jack Byers or Mrs Watson, but it was more likely to have been Miss Grey Gown. Was that what her veiled threat had meant? ‘Why not give her the opportunity to retract? I promised to pay Jack Byers to set the widow’s garden to rights. If that were made public, she would have to put the record straight.’

‘You did what?’ his father demanded angrily.

‘I found Byers begging and thought to give him a little work. It is sad to see a good, upright man reduced to holding out his hand for pennies. He always worked well when he was employed by the estate. Men like him should not be penalised for serving king and country. I gave him work and the widow will get her garden back.’

‘I wish you would not interfere in matters that do not concern you, Miles. You have belittled my authority and added to the ridicule and that I will not tolerate.’

‘So are you going to issue a writ on me, too?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Miles turned and left him. It had become more and more obvious that he and his father could not live amicably under the same roof, but he was reluctant to leave his mother. Since coming home six months before he had been looking for a property in the area where he could live independently and yet be close to her. He had found nothing suitable and had been considering buying Ravensbrook Manor, which stood just outside the perimeter of Ravens Park. It had been empty and derelict for years, but it was possible to see it had once been a substantial house. As a child, he had often crept through a broken window and played in it, his footsteps and laughter echoing as he ran from room to room, brandishing a wooden sword and pretending to capture it from an imaginary enemy. It would take time and money to restore it, but it was in an ideal position and so he had set about tracing its owner in order to make an offer. He said nothing to anyone of his plans and in the meantime continued to live at Ravens Park and tried not to be contentious for his mother’s sake, even if it did mean turning his back on an argument.

He went to the stables and found Jack Byers there talking to the head groom. Seeing Miles, Jack turned to touch his forelock. ‘I’ve done what you said, my lord. I’ve repaired the hedge and the hen coop, and some of the cabbages will survive, but there’s no rescuing the peas and beans.’

Miles delved in his pocket for coins to pay the man. ‘Your wages as promised and a little extra to buy half-a-dozen laying hens and new pea and bean seeds for Mrs Watson. There is time to replant, is there not?’

‘If I get them in this week they should grow, always supposing the weather improves.’

‘Have you found more permanent work yet?’

‘No, my lord.’

‘If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ He pocketed the money and took his leave. Miles ordered his horse to be saddled and set off for Warburton.

He found the offices of the Warburton Record easily enough, dismounted and went inside. A young man looked up as he entered and scrambled to his feet. ‘My lord …’

‘I wish to speak to Miss Wayland. I believe she is the proprietor.’

‘Yes, she is. I’ll fetch her.’ He scuttled away.

Two minutes later he was surprised to find himself confronted by Miss Grey Gown herself. This time she was wearing a brown taffeta afternoon dress with a cream-lace fichu. Her rich chestnut hair was cut unusually short and fell about her face in soft curls. Her hazel eyes looked into his fearlessly. He smiled and bowed. ‘Miss Wayland?’

She bent her head in the polite gesture she would have used to any slight acquaintance. ‘My lord.’

He smiled. ‘Miss Wayland, you have upset my father, the Earl …’

‘Good.’

‘Not good. He is determined to teach you a lesson and is sending for his lawyer to issue a writ for defamation of character.’

If she was upset by this she did not show it. ‘Then you may tell the Earl I shall defend it. I wrote nothing but the unbiased truth.’

‘Truth is not considered a defence, you know.’

‘Then it ought to be.’

‘Can you afford a court case and a heavy fine?’

‘I shall win.’

‘Better to retract. You heard me apologise to Mrs Watson and I asked Jack Byers to mend Mrs Watson’s garden, which, if you had taken the trouble to discover, you would have known. That rather defeats your argument, don’t you think?’

She had felt guilty about not mentioning that in her report, but she was not going to admit it. ‘It is not relevant to the point I was making, that it was for the Earl to recognise his responsibility, not his son.’

‘I represent my father.’

‘I find it hard to believe the Earl sent you to plead with me.’ She chuckled suddenly and the hazel eyes were suddenly full of humour, which changed her whole countenance. He realised with a start that she was beautiful and found himself smiling back. ‘It would be entirely out of character.’

‘He did not send me, but that is neither here nor there. Mrs Watson was recompensed.’

‘That you did it is to your credit, my lord, but it does not invalidate my argument. The Earl should be the one to make restitution and he should learn that even the humblest widow is a person deserving of respect. But I fear he is too set in his ways for that ever to come about.’

Miles was inclined to agree, but it would be disloyal to his father to say so and in his opinion family disagreements should be kept within the family. ‘Nevertheless, restitution was made and it gives you the opportunity to reciprocate,’ he said. ‘Publish the true facts in your newspaper and the whole matter will be dropped.’

‘Do you speak on behalf of the Earl?’

He hesitated and in that hesitation she had her answer. ‘No, of course you do not. I wonder why you came.’

‘To save you from your own folly,’

‘Is it folly to stand up for the poor and oppressed? Is it folly to point out injustice when I see it?’

‘No, I admire that, but if it leads to your own downfall …’

‘Why are you concerned for my downfall? I should have thought you would rejoice at it.’

‘I do not rejoice at anyone’s downfall, Miss Wayland,’ he said, smiling to soften the fierce look she was giving him. ‘I suppose I like to think I am a just and fair person and you are—’

‘A woman!’ she finished for him. ‘And not equipped to deal in a man’s world, is that what you were about to say?’

‘There is some truth in that.’

‘Then I shall have to prove you wrong, my lord.’

‘So you will retract?’

‘There is nothing to gainsay. What I wrote was the truth. And I shall continue to write the truth, however uncomfortable it makes people feel.’

‘Making someone feel uncomfortable is only the half of it,’ he said. ‘There is the consequence to consider.’

‘A change of heart, perhaps?’

He did not think that would happen. ‘I meant an appearance in a court of law.’

‘I shall welcome the opportunity to have my say.’

‘I would not advise it. You might make matters a hundred times worse.’

‘Thank goodness I am not required to take your advice,’ she retorted.

He smiled and changed tack. ‘I believe your father and mine were often at loggerheads, Miss Wayland. Do you have to continue the feud, for feud I believe it was, though I have no idea how it started? It would be a pity to perpetuate it.’

‘It was not a feud, it was simply that my father published the truth as he saw it and that did not please the Earl who saw, and still sees, his position as unassailable. But I think it should be challenged.’

She had spirit, he would give her that, but did she really understand the implications of taking up swords against his father? ‘And you are determined to carry on where your father left off without even knowing why.’

‘I do know why. I have just told you: justice and fairness for those who cannot stand up for themselves.’

‘And who is to stand up for you?’

‘I can look after myself, my lord.’

This was sheer bravado. He could see the doubt in her expressive greeny-brown eyes. Beautiful eyes, he decided, bright and honest-looking. He doubted she could lie convincingly. ‘Then, as I cannot budge you, I will take my leave.’ He bowed, turned on his heel and was gone.

She watched him stop outside and look at the large sash window in which she had stuck the pages of the latest edition of the paper. Poor people could not afford newspapers. With tax duty of four pence they had to be sold at sixpence or sevenpence at least, which put them out of the reach of the ordinary working man and left her very little profit. She was convinced the tax was high in order to keep the lower orders from learning of things the government and those in authority did not want them to learn and so she had begun the habit of putting the pages in the window, so that it could be read aloud by those who could read to those who could not. His glance moved from that to one of Roger Blakestone’s posters advertising the rally on the common. As he walked back to his horse, she noticed he limped. She had read in the London paper that he had been wounded doing some deed of valour during the recent war with Napoleon and supposed that was the result.

Helen turned back to work, but the prospect of being sued was worrying. If she were heavily fined or sent to prison, then the Warburton Record and the printing business would have to be shut down and that meant no work for Edgar, who was the sole support of his mother, or Tom Salter, who had a wife and three children, or Betty, her maid, who was an orphan and whose only relation was a distant cousin too poor to help her. She had brought this on them in her pig-headedness.

Her father had spent six months in Norwich Castle for speaking out against the Earl enclosing common land which the villagers had worked since time immemorial. His crime had been called seditious libel. He had returned home after he served his sentence, a shadow of the man he had been. He was gaunt and thin, his hair had turned white and he walked with a stoop. It was a long time before he stood upright again and put on a little weight, but it did not seem to have taught him a lesson.

The fire in his belly against injustice wherever he saw it, and particularly against the Earl of Warburton, had been as fierce as ever. She had watched him and worried about him, tried to tempt him with his favourite food, tried to persuade him to rest while she ran the paper, but to no avail. His pen was vitriolic. She had no doubt that if he had not died of a seizure, he would have been arraigned again. That was her legacy, not bricks and mortar, not printing presses, but his undying passion, a passion she shared.

‘You are not going to let him bully you, are you?’ Edgar said from his desk where he had been setting out advertisements, one for a lecture at the assembly rooms called ‘At Waterloo with Wellington’ being given by some bigwig from London, Mr West advertising his agricultural implements, and the miller his flour. Another was for an elixir of youth at sixpence a bottle. Goodness knew what it contained, but she did not doubt it tasted vile and could not live up to its name.

‘I don’t want to, but it’s not only me I have to consider. There’s you and Tom and Betty.’

‘We’ll manage, don’t you fret.’

Tom came in from the back room in time to hear this. ‘Manage what?’

‘The Earl is threatening to sue me for defamation of character,’ she explained. ‘I am wondering if I ought to retract?’

‘But you said nothing that wasn’t true, did you?’

‘No, but the Viscount tells me that is no defence.’

‘He is only trying to frighten you. Call his bluff.’

‘You think I should?’

‘Yes, if you think you are in the right. Your father would have. We will stand by you.’

‘Thank you, both of you, but I fear I have made an enemy of the Viscount.’

In any other circumstances and if he was not who he was, she could have liked the Viscount. He had none of the arrogance of his father, but he was his father’s son nevertheless. Was he right about a feud? Her father had had no love for the Earl, but she had always supposed it was for altruistic reasons and not personal. But supposing there was something personal in their enmity, what could it possibly be? A wrong never righted? But why? Who was to blame? She sighed and went back to her work; she was unlikely to find the answer to that now.